From the Washington Post:
“Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday unanimously endorsed making birth control pills available without a prescription, overriding concerns raised by the agency about whether the medication could be used in a safe and effective manner without physician oversight.
“The FDA’s outside experts expressed confidence, in a 17-0 vote, that consumers could use an oral contraceptive called Opill correctly. They said the benefits of over-the-counter status, such as increased access to contraception, outweighed the risks, including a potential lack of adherence to daily pill-taking that could result in unintended pregnancies.
“The move sharply bolsters the likelihood that Opill, made by HRA Pharma, which is owned by the consumer health giant Perrigo, will become the first birth control pill available in the United States without a prescription. The FDA does not have to follow the guidance of its advisers, but a rejection of the OTC application — especially given the committee’s view — would be awkward for an administration that has repeatedly pledged to protect reproductive rights following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed the nationwide right to abortion.”
A final FDA decision on OTC availability of this particular birth control pill is expected this summer or early autumn.
KC’s View:
I mention this because “OTC” means that these pills potentially could be sold at a lot of retailers around the country with HBC departments, which means that there also is the potential for their availability could become yet another battle in the culture wars over women’s reproductive rights. Inevitably, there will be protests in some places where they don’t want certain FDA-approved medicines to be available, which will mean that retailers will have to make decisions about what they are going to carry or not carry.
Retailers need to be prepared to be plunged into a battle with which they’d rather not be associated, but that’s life these days. Get ready.
As Axios points out, “If the FDA follows the recommendation and switches HRA Pharma’s Opill away from prescription-only use, it could expand the availability of contraception — and deepen partisan rifts over reproductive health in the post-Roe landscape … Reproductive rights advocates say that allowing for the over-the-counter sale of birth control pills could increase access to the 19 million women living in contraceptive deserts.”
Which is exactly what some folks don’t want.
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